Lisa Perry grew up in Chicago but feels like she’s lived in New York all her life. The Loft has been around for over twenty years at 383 West Broadway and has served, in its various guises, as an Art Studio, a Fashion Design Laboratory and now, an experimental gallery space. In early November, Perry opened the doors of ONNA House Sohe, an Urban Offshoot of East Hampton Gallery housed in a home designed by Paul Lere Buener—designed exclusively for and celebrating female artists. The seer mentioned perry a few weeks after the soho opened. “This is what the space was always meant to be,” he confirms. It means “Woman” in Japanese, the name she sticks to is the same as her grandmother’s name, Nonena, is what her grandchildren call her.
ONNA House So’o is part salon, part art gallery, although it has the feel of a living room – one filled with remarkable art by women. That said, Perry is completely indifferent to the fast-paced world of art. Singer Jessie Mordine Ship series, The year is wovenit hangs in one of the first places visitors see when they enter the space. It happens that Young throws a lot of work into the gallery during the viewing period and explains that his series is a daily response to the surrounding. “It’s the first time I’ve shared this work outside of my studio,” he explained, explaining that he appreciates “the appreciation of the handprint, the art.”
“There aren’t many paintings that focus on hands.” Perry said. “It’s not every day someone hangs a tapestry on their wall.” That speaks to his approach to sales, which is slow and deliberate and involves careful walking that allows collectors to see the work framed in furniture or otherwise in a way that still feels like home. Perry told the viewer that she likes to know how long it takes to make the work and that the collection is reminiscent of “women’s hands and hearts.” ONNA House in East Hampton operates on the same philosophy. At a recent show in East Hampton, she displayed quilts on a wall, explaining that even things created for the sake of art can still be art. Her gallery is part of the renovation that is happening now, where the medium that is often associated with women’s work and is taken too much is given what it deserves. Recently, shows like the exhibition of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam’s “Aleve Wovel and the politics of textiles in Art” and Momama’s “Preparation” textiles “have brought the Enlightenment and started ‘art,’ in the larger field of fine art at first.
ONNA HOUSE SOHO is open by appointment only and exhibitions are loosely organized, and works are rotated inside or out and replaced when taken home by the collector. Perry and his team rearranged and resurrected small vignettes of the moments in the rooms organized by materials, which are constantly rearranged and suitable functions to appear in harmony. “It turned out better than I could have imagined,” Perry said. The success of the gallery has supported his work as an artist and his vulnerability to fashion, but in the end he sees himself more and more as a curator.
In one hall, small coats are hung on small racks, each of which adjusts the clothes with visible repairs and sewing marks. During our walk, Perry gave him his sweat, revealing a small hole in the bag. “I’m wearing this so he can fix it,” he said, half joking, although the idea aligns with the ethos of ONTA House, as well as his involvement, support and personal connection with the artists he works with. At ONTA House, he says, it’s not just about showing impressive art but also about the intimacy between the maker and the object between the collector and the artist.
The artists it brings are impressively talented, so it’s impossible to pick a favorite. There are porcelain ceramics by Leah Kaplan that seem to have softened, appearing like a piece of stretched taffy. There are tree barks embedded in themselves, an impressive sight that makes you question their inner workings. Many gallery artists also exhibit in other spaces. Large tapestries are hung on the wall by Horoko Takeda, who has work in the group exhibition “max-maximal” at Hunter Dunbar Projects on January 17, 2026, which places his work next to Helen Francella. In the steel room, there are stunning paintings made entirely from safety pins by artist Tamiko Kawata, who is having a solo exhibition at Alison Bradley Projects. His process was born out of necessity, as he came to America, he found that American clothes did not measure the pins of his safety, he started a tool to strengthen the clothes, it became a method.
Even in these early months, ONNA House So’o already feels Primed to become an important element of EN New York City’s Art Ecosystem. It is a place where smoothness is important and creativity is part of a larger list. In one of the last rooms – the reading room – is a large work made of a piece of wood with dark pink shapes inspired by the structure of the lungs. It shows the feeling of leaving the loft: The feeling of just leaving the world built with care for the materials, because the stories included in them and the women who bound the works of art. Perry’s gallery is a breath of fresh air.
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